


i send this smile over to you

by jadeddiva



Series: sign your name across my heart [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it’s that Killian has never asked anything of her, continues to not ask anything of her even after he shared his deepest secret, that she just wants to be here, out of the light, next to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i send this smile over to you

He sits alone, closer to the water than the fire, back against a large rock near the shore.  He’s entirely alone – as if, despite what has happened and how much he has proven himself, no one wants to approach the infamous Captain Hook.  He has his flask in hand as a distraction but Emma knows he’s only taken sips and is hardly drunk.  Its behavior she recognizes from her own life, using her cellphone to distract her from the fact that she was, yet again, eating dinner alone.

It breaks her.  He has given up his ship and his life (and his darkest secret) for her and her family.  He does not deserve to be alone, not now, not after how far he’s come.  She gets that some people present have history with him, but she doesn’t, and if they’re going to accept Regina into their midst, the least they can do it be more graceful about him.

Henry’s clung to her side for most of the evening so she slips out of his grip, presses a kiss against his forehead.

“Hey kiddo,” she says, “I’m going to check on Killian.”

“Who?” Henry asks, and Emma catches her slip.  No one else knows him as Killian – just like no one else knows him like she feels she does.  There’s something gentle and blossoming that exists between in the space, and it’s fragility makes her want to protect it fiercely.  Using his name with Henry feels like a betrayal of that.

“Hook.  I’m going to check on Hook – go hang out with your mom,” she nudges him in Regina’s direction, and Henry shrugs and heads closer to the fire.  He slips into Regina’s arms as easily as he left Emma’s, and the other woman looks up at her with a grateful smile.  Emma smiles back, because where Henry is concerned, she and Regina are in agreement.

Neal sits beside his father in some sort of tense truce, and Emma stretches, glancing over to where _he_ is, alone with his thoughts and his flask.   He’s close to the fire but not close enough to be part of the wide circle that they’ve created, since half the people here are wary of the other half, and she feels comfortable approaching him without anyone else overhearing their conversation.

“How’s your wound?” she asks.  He glances up, his eyes unguarded, and the look that he gives her makes her heart stop and makes her so grateful that she left the others and came to his side.

He’s so lonely here, surrounded by her family, and she _gets_ it on so many levels, feeling so alone in a crowd, that she flops on the ground next to him without any other word.

“Let me see,” she says, fingers already reaching towards the vest.  He waves her hand away with his hook and lifts his clothing up delicately.

“It’s just a scratch,” Killian says, and she is grateful to see that it’s not bleeding through.  “If it was Dreamshade, it would be obvious,” he adds. 

The feeling of knowing he isn’t bleeding out on them – that he will be okay – is so intense that she bites her lip and looks away. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” she says, settling in beside him. 

Maybe it’s just that family is still a new concept to her, that she feels overwhelmed.  Maybe she doesn’t want to have to face the demands of everyone in her life from her son to her father to her son’s father.  Maybe it’s that Killian has never asked anything of her, continues to not ask anything of her even after he shared his deepest secret, that she just wants to be here, out of the light, next to him.

She still remembers the feel of his skin under her fingertips and the utter panic she felt at the thought of him being mortally wounded.

“Let’s play a game,” she says.  “We’ll need your flask.”

“A drinking game,” he responds, raising his eyebrow.  “I like the way you think, Swan.”

“I ask a question, and you have to answer it, and you can do the same for me,” Emma says, taking the flash in hand.  Their fingers brush accidently and she inhales sharply at the contact. 

He looks wary for a moment, but his carefully-constructed persona of a pirate returns quickly, and he winks at her.  “Whatever you say, love,” he says.

She tries not to grin at the way he still calls her ‘love’ – she finds a bizarre comfort in it, in the way it’s so normal to her now – and so she hides it by taking a tiny sip.  She’s not about to get blitzed in front of Henry.

“What was your brother like?” Emma asks, handing the flask over to him.   He takes it, and looks off into the jungle for a moment, trying to determine what to say. 

“He was brave,” Killian says softly, raising the flask to his lips.  “He was loyal, and he always thought the best of me even though I was his younger brother.  He always requested me as his second whenever he traveled, because he wanted to give me the experience.  He wanted me to be a captain of my own ship one day.”  He takes a sip. “Which happened, of course, but not the way he would haven’t wanted.”

“What happened?” Emma asks.  Killian shakes his head and hands the flask back towards her

“One question at a time,” he tells her.  “My turn.”

“Shoot,” she says, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.   He hands the flask back towards her.  There is no rhyme or reason this game, she realizes, but the rum warms her stomach.

“What is a ‘perm’ exactly?” he asks.  Emma, who is raising the flask, spits out the rum as she laughs. 

She glances over to the fire and sees Neal looking towards them – Mary Margaret too, and the looks on both of their faces are so different (which is unsurprising – Neal wants her to be with him, and Mary Margaret wants her to be happy) that she looks away.

Killian has been following her gaze and seems to be more bothered than she is – the cocky pirate façade is gone and in its place is that same morose look that he’s worn for the past several days.  Its guilt, she thinks, for possibly taking away Neal’s happiness.  They have a history, Emma knows, and it’s not a good one in many ways and on many levels. 

“Perm?” she asks, nudging his shoulder with her own, bringing them back to the question and the moment. 

“You said that...the way that I’m represented in your world...something about a perm?” he responds, trying to wrap his head around the concept.  “You said it like it was not something I would like.”

“A perm is...adding a lot of curl to your hair.  Like Belle, but curlier? Like, really curly.  That’s what they think you look like in my world,” she tells him.  She extends her hands out around her head.  “Like, huge poofy hair.”

He reaches for the flask with an eyeroll and takes a large gulp.

“Don’t be too offended,” she says. “It’s supposed to be funny.  Peter Pan is the good guy in my world, not...”

“Clearly your people are confused about a great many things,” Killian points out.

“They think fairytales are kids’ stuff,” Emma tells him.  “They don’t know that the real Captain Hook exists, and that he’s a genuinely nice guy.”

Killian smiles against the flask, ducking his head to hide it, and it’s a different kind of smile than she’s seen – small and shy, and completely lacking the normal bravado that comes with one of his smiles.  She wonders if this was what he was like – before Neverland, before he had to become someone else in order to be a pirate.

“I’m really not that nice of a person, Swan,” he tells her, using her last name as if keeping distance between them.

“They just don’t know you like I do.” 

That small smile returns at her words. 

She asks him more questions about Liam, and his childhood, and he asks her about her world – fairly simple questions, none of them too deep.  He seems to enjoy talking about his brother, and she manages to steer clear of their fateful trip to Neverland.  He tells anecdotes from his time at sea, and she tells him about the various interpretations of the people here in her world, and she finds she slouching down against the rock next to him, shoulder against him, faces mere inches apart.

There’s one question that she asks him, about something inconsequential, where he turns to her and his face is so close that she can feel his breath against her cheek, and she thinks about how easy it would be to just lean in and kiss him again.  He’s a good kisser, and there’s something about the small smile that he gave her at the end of their last kiss (and has given her multiple times tonight) that makes her think it might be a good idea because it felt good, regardless of how fucking messed up her head is at the moment. 

There are footsteps from the fire, and they both look up to see David walking over to them.  The sight of her father is like a cold shower, and she sits up, handing the flask back to Killian (Jesus, is she drunk? Was she really thinking of kissing him with everyone present? What is wrong with her?)

“Hey,” he calls out.  “Everyone’s decided to start bedding down, and Mary Margaret and I will take first watch.  Could you guys take second?”

“What are we watching for?” Emma asks. David shrugs.

“Old habits die hard, and both Regina and Gold need sleep if we’re going home tomorrow.”  He glances from her to Killian.

“Sure thing,” Emma responds.  Killian nods. 

“Get some rest,” David tells them, looking at both of them warily before heading back to Mary Margaret and the fire.

Killian caps the flask and puts it back into his coat, and she stretches out her legs, clearly unsure of what to say now.  There’s an awkwardness in thinking that she might have to walk back to the fire and leave him here (she doesn’t want to) and that he might have to be alone again when he doesn’t want to be (she doesn’t want that).

She doesn’t glance over to the fire, to see what the others are doing.  She knows that Neal is watching, but she doesn’t care about that.  She cares about being here, right now, because she knows how important it is to be around the ones you love.

Her heart is more fortified than the prison she spent ten months of her life in, and the father of her son is trying to get back in her life and her good graces after leaving her so long ago. She’s got to deal with a mother who is her age and a father who may not be able to leave Neverland after all that Regina and Gold have done, as well as having magic trapped inside herself that she doesn’t know how to use.

Staying here, with him, is easy – probably the easiest thing she’s done in a long time.

She settles back beside him, wrapping her arms across her chest.  “You okay with second watch?” she asks. 

“Of course,” he says.  She can tell that her proximity makes him uncomfortable right now – uncertain, probably, because he’s expecting her to go back to the fire and her son and Neal and she’s not doing that.  She’s staying with him, which is bravery in and of itself, a type of bravery that surprises her.

“I don’t know how I feel about you,” Emma says bluntly, because she doesn’t.  There’s too much going on in her heart to make sense of any of it.  “But I know, at the very least, that I want to be here with you right now.”

The look – of hope? – that crosses his face makes her want to cry.  He nods, looking away from her, setting down against the rock.  He nudges her with his arm.

“It would less than chivalrous of me to let you sleep on the hard ground,” he tells her. 

He is extending her arm so that she can sleep against him.  Part of her worries this is too much, but the part of her that wants to do this, that finds physical contact to be something she so desperately wants (and rarely ever gets) directs her to lift up her shoulders, letting him slip his non-hook hand underneath her.  She rests her head against his shoulder, her hands unsure of where to go so she places them on her stomach. 

Emma can feel her heart pound in her chest – she is so nervous - and realizes that Killian’s body is a live wire next to hers, tense and uncertain.  They are both out of practice with intimacy and the thought makes her giggle nervously.  She raises her hands to cover her mouth so as not to wake anyone.

Killian shifts under her, trying to withdraw his arm, and she shakes her head.  “No, not you, it’s just that...I haven’t done anything like this with anyone but Henry in a long time.”  

He looks over at her, eyes so blue in the pale moonlight of Neverland, and huffs. “That might possibly be the saddest thing I heard in ages, love,” he tells her.  She smiles, small and grateful for his honesty.

She hopes he is equally grateful for her own.

Emma wonders if what she feels for him is love.  It is different than what she feels about anyone else in her life, so different than the way she felt about Neal that it’s virtually unrecognizable as such.  But when he looks at her with such care and grace, it makes her feel something she’s never felt before.

His body is a warm resting place, so she is surprised when someone kicks her boot.  She wakes to find her body wrapped around his, arm across his chest, puddle of drool on his vest and Mary Margaret at her feet.

“Time for second watch,” she tells Emma, reaching for her hand.  Emma lets her mother pull her to a standing position. She dusts the sand off her jeans. 

Mary Margaret looks down at Killian, still sleeping.  “I’ll let you wake him,” she tells her daughter with a sly smile.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asks.  “You don’t think – “

 Mary Margaret shrugs her shoulders.  “You two looked rather cozy,” she comments.  “I don’t care who you love, Emma – I just want you to be happy.”

Emma glances back down at Killian, who looks so shockingly young when he sleeps.   

“I don’t care who I love either,” she tells Mary Margaret, but when she turns back to her mother, the other woman is already walking to the other side of the camp.

She wonders if she said it just for her own sake. 


End file.
